1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printer utilized by a computer such as a personal computer or a workstation, a document print system using the printer, and a document printing method using the printer and the document print system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional printer and print system, contents to be printed prepared by a computer are transferred to a printer, where the contents are printed. Thus, the principal objective of the conventional printer and print system resides in the act of printing itself.
In some printers and print systems, a document is stored in the printer, and the thus-stored document is re-used for re-printing or re-editing purposes. Here, the document comprises an arbitrary combination of characters, symbols, graphic and image.
In a conventional printer and print system, when the printer stores the document, the document is not stored in the form of a print command prepared by an individual computer and transmitted (hereinafter referred to also as a xe2x80x9cPDLxe2x80x9d) but is stored in the form of a dot image expanded in the printer (the dot image will hereinafter be simply referred to also as an xe2x80x9cimagexe2x80x9d). Storage of a document in the form of a dot image provides superior performance in terms of re-printing but provides a lower degree of freedom in editing and causes deterioration of picture quality when the document is edited. More specifically, if the stored document is subjected to assembly editing or imposition, such as saddle stitching, Japanese-style binding, or perfect binding, or n-up which define disposing logical n sheets in a physical 1 sheet, the corresponding stored dot image is enlarged or reduced. If the dot image is enlarged or reduced by a factor of xe2x80x9cxxe2x80x9d (x-times or one over x, where xe2x80x9cxxe2x80x9d is not 1), the picture quality of the dot image is in principle deteriorated.
Further, in the conventional printer and print system, extraction of the document stored in the printer and editing of the document by means of an application program for editing (hereinafter referred to simply as an xe2x80x9capplication programxe2x80x9d) are effected on the premise that a match exists between a document format required by the application program and the format of the stored document. Hence, if no match exists, the stored document cannot be edited by means of the application program. Such a match can be ensured when a single manufacturer offers a printer for storing documents and an application program or when the printer and the program are developed by a printer manufacturer in collaboration with an application program manufacturer. However, such a match cannot be ensured when a printer and an application program are developed independently of each other. In fact, in many cases, printer manufacturers and application program manufacturers develop their own products independently.
The primary object of the present invention is to solve the aforementioned problem and to provide a print system and a document printing method, both of which have improved performance and provide improved ease of use without involvement of deterioration in picture quality of a document image.
The second object of the present invention is to solve the aforementioned problem and to provide a print system and a document printing method, both of which enable coexistence of a printer and an application program even when a format in which the printer stores a document is different from a document format required by the application program, thereby enhancing convenience and ease-of-use.
To solve the problem, the present invention employs the following measures.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing method for use with a print system including a computer and a printer connected to the computer directly or by way of a network, the method comprising the steps of:
directing the printer to effect printing and storage of a document prepared by the computer in an arbitrary combination;
transmitting the document to the printer;
effecting receipt by the printer of the document transmitted from the computer; and
effecting printing and storage of the document according to the instruction from the computer.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing method for use with a print system including a computer and a printer connected to the computer directly or by way of a network, wherein
the computer comprises a program for preparing a document and a logical printer driver for converting the document into a PDL document, directs the printer to effect printing and storage of the PDL document prepared by the computer in an arbitrary combination, and transmits the PDL document to the printer; and
the printer receives the document from the computer, and effects printing and storage of the document according to the instruction from the computer.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing method for use with a print system including a computer and a printer connected to the computer directly or by way of a network, wherein
the computer comprises a program for directing the printer to effect printing and storage of a PDL document in an arbitrary combination and transmits a PDL document to the printer; and
the printer receives the PDL document from the computer and effects printing and storage of the PDL document according to the instruction from the computer.
Preferably, when directing the printer to store a document, the computer directs use of an arbitrary combination of PDL format and dot image format as a storage format; and, in accordance with the direction relating to the storage format issued by the computer, the printer stores the document in an arbitrary combination of PDL format and dot image format.
Preferably, the computer issues a request to the printer for reprinting the document stored in an archive, and the printer determines whether or not a document of dot image format is stored in the archive, reprints the document of dot image format if the document of dot image format is found, and reprints the document after having RIPed a document of PDL format if the document of dot image format is not found in the archive.
Preferably, when the computer issues a request to the printer to display and edit a document, which has been stored in a PDL format in the archive of the printer from the computer, the document of PDL format is read from the printer and is subjected to display and editing.
Preferably, when the computer issues a request to the printer to display and edit a document, which has been stored in a storage format in the archive of the printer from the computer,
the printer determines whether or not the format of the document stored in the printer is identical with the display/editing format required by an application program for editing purposes installed in the computer;
if the formats are identical, the document is read and transferred to the computer without modification; but if the formats differ from each other, the document stored in the archive is converted into a document of display/editing format, through use of a document format conversion section provided in the printer.
Preferably, when the computer issues a request to the printer for displaying and editing a document, which has been stored in PDL format in an archive of the printer from the computer, the printer converts the document of PDL format stored in the archive into a document of display/editing format through use of a PDL format conversion section provided in the printer and transfers the thus-converted document to the computer, and
an application program 1 for editing purpose, which is one of a document preparation program and a combination instruction program and is installed in the computer, reads the document of display/editing format transferred from the printer, and subjects the document to display and editing.
Preferably, a document transmitted from the computer is stored in a storage format called PDL format in an archive of the printer;
the computer issues a request to the printer for displaying and editing the document;
the printer determines whether or not the format of the document stored in the printer is identical with a document formal which is called display/editing format and is required by an application program for editing purpose installed in the computer, and reading and sending the document to the computer without modification if the formats are identical;
if the formats differ from each other, the printer converts the document of PDL format (storage format) stored in the archive into a document of display/editing format through use of a PDL format conversion section provided in the printer and transfers the thus-converted document to the computer; and
an application program 1 for editing purpose, which is one of a document preparation program and a combination instruction program and is installed in the computer, reads the document of display/editing format transferred from the printer and subjects the document to display and editing.
Preferably, a document transmitted from the computer is stored in a compressed or uncompressed dot image format in an archive of the printer;
the computer issues a request to the printer for displaying and editing the document; the printer determines the format of the document stored in the printer and reads and transfers the document to the computer without modification if the document is of uncompressed dot image format;
if the document is of compressed dot image format, the printer converts the document of compressed dot image format stored in the archive into a document of uncompressed dot image format through use of an image format conversion section and transfers the thus-converted document to the computer; and
an application program 2 for editing purpose, which is one of a document preparation program and a combination instruction program and is installed in the computer, reads the document of uncompressed dot image format transferred from the printer and subjects the document to display and editing.
Preferably, when the computer directs the printer to store a document, use of an arbitrary combination of PDL format, display/editing format, and dot image format is directed as a storage format; and in accordance with the direction relating to the storage format issued by the computer, the printer stores the document in an arbitrary combination of PDL format, display/editing format, and dot image format.
Preferably, each of the documents stored in the archive is managed by reference to a name and attributes assigned to the document;
the attributes comprise a storage format group which includes an arbitrary combination of PDL format, display/editing formats uncompressed dot image format, and compressed dot image format;
when the computer issues a request to the printer for reprinting the document by reference to the document name thereof, a reprinting section provided in the printer determines, from the document name, in conjunction with the storage format group, which is one of the attributes of the document stored in the archive, that the document is stored in any combination of PDL format, display/editing format, uncompressed dot image format, and compressed dot image format; and
the document is reprinted by means of an optimum method corresponding to the result of the determination.
Preferably, each of the documents stored in the archive is managed by reference to a name and attributes assigned to the document;
the attributes comprise a storage format group which includes an arbitrary combination of PDL format, display/editing format, uncompressed dot image format, and compressed dot image format;
when the computer issues a request to the printer for reprinting the document by reference to the document name thereof, a reprinting section provided in the printer determines, from the document name, in conjunction with the storage format group, which is one of the attributes of the document stored in the archive, that the document is stored in any combination of PDL format, display/editing format, uncompressed dot image format, and compressed dot image format; and
the document is displayed and edited by means of an application program for editing purpose according to an optimum method corresponding to the result of the determination.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing method for use with a print system including a computer and a printer connected to the computer directly or by way of a network, wherein
a document stored in the computer is transferred to and temporarily stored in a storage folder provided in a printer controller through file transfer; and the document is again transferred to a target archive within the printer controller from the storage folder, where the document has been temporarily stored, after normal completion of temporal storage of the document has been ascertained.
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a printing method for use with a print system including a computer and a printer connected to the computer directly or by way of a network, wherein storage of a document stored in the computer to an archive within a printer controller is effected according to procedures comprising the steps of:
(1) an archive control instruction section provided in the computer issues a document storage start request to an archive control service section provided in the printer controller while a storage folder name is attached to the start request as an additional parameter;
(2) after the archive control service section has prepared, as a storage folder name designated by the additional parameter, a work directory for storing a file received by a file transfer receiving section, the printer controller stores the received document file under the storage folder name;
(3) the archive control instruction section issues a document transfer instruction to the file transfer sending section and directs the computer to transfer a document file sequence to the printer controller while a document file name sequence is attached to the document file sequence as an additional parameter;
(4) a file transfer sending section issues a file transmission instruction to the file transfer receiving section, thereby transferring the document file sequence to the file transfer receiving section while the document file name sequence is attached to the document file sequence as an additional parameter;
(5) the file transfer receiving section stores the thus-received document file sequence in a storage folder;
(6) after the file transfer receiving section has completed storage of all the document files into the storage folder in step (5), a transfer completion report is transmitted to the file transfer sending section;
(7) the file transfer sending section transfers the transfer completion report to a transfer completion confirmation section provided in the archive control instruction section, thus reporting that all the document files have been stored in the storage folder within the printer controller;
(8) the archive control instruction section issues a document storage completion request to the archive control service section, thereby directing the archive control service section to store the received document sequence into the storage folder while a sequence pair comprising (a) a new storage folder name and (b) a new document file name is attached to each of the documents as an additional parameter, and the names (a) and (b) enabling attachment of a new storage folder name and a new document file name to each of the document files; and
(9) archive-storing section of the archive control service section stores individual documents stored in the storage folder into the archive by reference to the names (a) and (b).